Campus Relationships

I can’t help but write about Campus Relationships just like any other thing in life, in my second year a friend once defined campus as a “compass” (the instrument for showing us which direction we are headed to) he talked a lot about how it is from this institution that we choose which direction we are headed to for the rest of our life.

Writing about campus relationships I am tempted to only remember the bad/weird. Flashbacks of my friend (Seth) going to girls’ rooms trying to hook up a girl (referred to as benching) and then later in the evening enjoying the company of Nile Special beer and Guinness simply because he failed to hook up any. Another one (Sande) decided to drink the really hard stuff (Gilbeys), just because he had called his girlfriend only to hear a male voice in the background during their conversation, the male voice asking ‘his’ girlfriend who was on the other end of the line and calling her back to bed.

These are the images that first pop up in my mind thinking of campus relationships. They all share the common themes of pain, heartbreak, revenge and betrayal…the stuff soap operas ‘obusabbuni’ are made of. I went through the same stage in life until after lots of hustles and rejects I met Diana (I will write about her). I will only be considered the disparaging, cynical, pessimistic kind of guy if I don’t look at the good side of it though.

Some 29 years ago, two students at Makerere University fell in love (they met in a Christian fellowship) and 5 years later I was born (Please don’t calculate my age) , the product of this love. Even today, I see my mum hugging my dad when he has just come from work and keep on wondering if such love still exists at campus.

Despite what I have witnessed and gone through, the story of my parents makes me want to believe in the power of love and campus relationships, and I must say that I haven’t been all disappointed because it’s from there that I met bae* A friend once told me when people fall in love in campus they do so for all the wrong reasons. What are these reasons I asked? His answers were;

Sex

Sex

I believed him because we had a saying that 36 contact hours with a campus girl are enough to get you laid otherwise two things were for sure

You’re slow

You’ve been friend zoned.

Whether this takes place in a period of 1 year or a week in doesn’t matter.

At campus all of us tend to be beggars and we survive on the little money from either our parents or part-time jobs which happen to pay very poorly (I worked for Ushs 80,000 per month) considering the amount of work you have to do. Money may not be an issue but only if you are not in love with a Ugandan campus girl, she will want you to do things from paying her saloon bills to buying her airtime, which sadly she uses to call the Love of her Life (this ‘hunk’ is in most cases a player and a perpetual heartbreaker).; and yet she has put you on the 90 day rule, that is why you have to also wait for 90 days to start opening your wallet. I mean if you really love her you will wait for 90 days to hit it and if she really loves you then she will have to wait to wait for 90 days before she sees your coin. Yes there is always the odd couple that will not fit this description but in my opinion, very humble opinion I might add, most do and what in the world is better than to be with someone who you are compatible with; who wants to be with you for the simple reason that they just do.
This does not mean every campus relationship will or has the potential to blossom into something as beautiful as my parents share but I am starting to think where is the harm in trying and seeing where it takes you…and when I start thinking this I just laugh and shake my head because nothing could be further from what I believe. The most important thing here is to be young and happy. Mostly happy, because personally I like being happy *sips Tusker. On a random note, I hate my boss… I should write about that too.